ISLE of Wight Road Runners (IWRR) athlete Glen Jones is a quarter of the way through the biggest physical challenge of his life — to complete a marathon a month for a year.

The IWRR chairman, who is doing the ‘12 in 12 months’ charity challenge in aid of the NSPCC, completed another Excalibur series marathon on Sunday by running around an athletics track 106 times.

The Excalibur 3 — his March marathon — was in Walton-on-Thames.

With the thought of a marathon personal best time in mind, Glen started well — keeping a steady pace as he chalked off each mind-numbing lap.

“I thought it would be easy — well, as easy as a marathon can be anyway,” joked Glen.

“However, I naively thought that being on the track would make a personal best time easier, but I hadn’t factored in lots of people doing lesser distance.”

This was no standard marathon.

It was a six-hour timed event, with competitors being able to run anything over 5km before being able to retire and claim their medals.

This made it particularly difficult for Glen to keep going and concentrate on his own run when those around him were stopping and starting.

But despite the distractions, Glen kept battling away and, after 65 laps, the mental battle really started to take its toll on him.

“I really could have done with a running buddy for the last 40 laps or so. It was so hard to keep going,” Glen conceded.

“I have to admit, I started to unravel a little bit.”

Glen’s tenacity was rewarded in the end.

Not only did he complete his 106 laps, but he managed to achieve the PB he had been after — 3.56.07 — shaving a minute off his previous best to run his second sub-four hour marathon in 14 days.